FORT GREGG-ADAMS, Va. –
Defense Contract Management Agency International employees recently secured a savings of $71.2 million on the delivery of a field defense system to a foreign ally.
Technical specialists Travis Goodwin and Christina Biggs conducted a technical support to negotiation, or TSN, review that resulted in a detailed 90-page report. Despite the distance of Goodwin working in the agency’s United Kingdom office and Biggs working in the agency’s Germany office, the two were able to collaborate on this effort resulting in millions of dollars in savings.
“The contents in this report strongly supported the government recommendation and clearly proved to be the driving force behind the program office’s negotiation stance,” said Goodwin. “Discussions between the contractor and program office resulted in a resubmission of the subcontractor’s proposal to align with the Department of Defense’s requirements for contracting with the federal government.”
Goodwin and Biggs’ findings in the report allowed them to recommend almost 80% reductions in labor and additional reductions in material and other direct costs. They worked with a subcontractor to obtain information necessary for DCMA to perform the technical analysis and provide a recommendation.
Their efforts required navigating complex foreign agreements and reviewing contractor processes to thoroughly understand the contractor’s estimating system. This collaboration resulted in better, more cost-effective proposals from the contractor.
“This is a great example of the excellent technical pricing support DCMA provides,” said Christopher Brust, director of the agency’s Engineering and Manufacturing Division. “It is a product of the teaming that occurs between Cost and Price Regional Command, DCMA International and the Technical Directorate. DCMA brings together policy, training, tools and people to create the experts that execute our mission, support our customers and achieve our affordability goals.”
Goodwin and Biggs also supported the contract negotiations leading to the agreed contract cost, resulting in the multi-million dollar savings. This effort supports the agency’s strategic goal of enhancing value and affordability through modern, adaptive and responsive cost and pricing capabilities.
Jorge Bennett, executive director of the Cost and Price Regional Command, hailed the savings as “meeting the agency’s Line of Effort 3 to drive enhanced value and affordability. It is exemplary of the impact of DCMA’s negotiation intelligence capability to the acquisition enterprise.”
In addition to DCMA leadership lauding the outcome of the report, the U.S. Navy customer was also satisfied with the savings on the new defense system.